Brian in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, listening on Catholic.com, your question please
for Tim Staples. Hi Tim, I love you so much. All right! Is this Brian?
Yes, this is Brian. All right Brian, welcome, my friend.
Please let me introduce myself first; I was baptized in the
Presbyterian Church, a Protestant church, but after going to to a
Catholic school for four years, I do really love the Church, so I decided to
convert to Catholicism. Fantastic! Thank you. And I understood how
the Church...I understood the reason why the Church prevented non-Catholics to
take Communion; it's to protect them from bringing condemnation upon themselves. But
when I went to confession and I said to the priest,
"Oh, I'm not Catholic yet, but I want to be Catholic," the priest
wouldn't let me to confession with him. So I just wondered why the Church
would prevent non- Catholics like me to go to confession.
Didn't the Church encourage everybody to go to confession? Right. Yes, and that's a
great question. Brian, the bottom line is this: in order to receive a sacrament in
the Church, you have to be in communion with Christ and His Church. Now the
way that God has has gifted us with these sacraments, they each have a
particular purpose. Now baptism is the sacrament, along with
faith, whereby we enter into Jesus Christ and His Church if we're
Catholic. And that sacrament gives us, or opens the door, if you will, to all of the
other sacraments in accordance with our particular calling in life. So unless
we're baptized, for example, we cannot receive any of the other sacraments
because we're not in Christ yet--we're not in his Church--therefore that doorway
has not been open to all the other sacraments. Now, you're Christian, you're
baptized; however, you're not in full communion with the Catholic Church. So
while we recognize, Brian, your Christian baptism--and I'm assuming you are a
baptized Christian, Brian? Because you mentioned you were Presbyterian. Yes. Well, we
acknowledge that you are a Christian, but you're separated from us. In order to go
on to receive another sacrament--even for a Catholic, as you grow up in the
Church, you have to profess faith that you believe, otherwise you shouldn't
receive the sacrament. You know, we can sin against faith or against hope as
well as against charity. We can commit sins against chastity as well as sins
against faith. For example, if I say "You know what, I don't believe the Pope
anymore is the Vicar of Christ," well then I have no right to receive a sacrament
in the Catholic Church, because that's an essential teaching that, if I reject, I'm
no longer in communion with the Catholic Church. So it's not just you, Brian,
or folks that are Protestant or outside of the Catholic faith;
anyone that is not truly in communion with Jesus Christ in his Church cannot
receive a sacrament in the Church. Now, somebody might ask, "Well
wait a minute, if you fall into a sin, though, can't you go to confession to be
re-established?" Absolutely. If you fall into a sin, let's say it's a sin against
the sixth commandment, then you're sorry for that sin, as a Catholic you go to
confession, and God reestablishes you, or as the Council of Trent said, you are
"justified again" and you re-enter into that full communion with Christ and His
Church. But, Brian, if you're a Protestant or you're a Catholic
who rejects something that is essential about the Catholic faith,
then you can't be reestablished into that full communion because there's an
obstacle, there's a block there. All right. But now, Brian, you might ask, "Well, what if
I'm a Protestant but I agree with everything the Catholic Church teaches?"
Well, come on in! Talk to the local parish there, get into the RCIA
program, because what the Church generally--barring danger of
death or something, where pretty much the Church throws law to the wind and gets
the grace to someone who professes faith in the Catholic faith and is in danger
of death, but--generally speaking, what the Church wants you to do is make a
commitment so that you show publicly, "Yes, I am committed to the Catholic Church, I
believe in Jesus Christ and in His Church," and that's what happens through the
RCIA program, you make that profession. Kind of like when you're going to get
married, right? You have to go through classes, and then you publicly profess,
"Yes, I am devoted to my now-wife or soon-to-be wife, I am committed to her
for life," that is what gives you the right to marry her and then go on to the
"consummatum," or the consummation. Does that help, Brian? See, the Church
wants to know that you are committed, and you have to do that publicly because, of
course, receiving sacraments is not just a private thing, it's a public thing. Does
that help at all, Brian? Yeah, that helps. And may I ask a follow-up question? Sure, fire away.
So since I'm now in this situation,
what should I do, like, daily? And after
I got confirmed, do I have to profess all of the mortal sins I
committed before my confirmation? What you need to do, your first
confession--and Brian, you're bringing back fond memories for me because I am a
convert, I came into the Church in 1988, and what I had to do is confess all of
my known mortal sins, at the very least. I did more than that,
I confessed as many venial sins as I could think of as well, and the Church
encourages that though it's not absolutely required. But you have to,
absolutely required, confess all the known mortal sins you've committed since your
baptism. Because, of course, at baptism all sins--original sin, personal sin, and in
fact all punishment due for sin--is gone. So whether you're baptized as a
Presbyterian, a Baptist, a Catholic--if it's a valid baptism, all the sins before
that are gone. But you do need to confess all of the mortal sins that you remember
since your baptism. And you're going to walk out of that confessional, my friend,
and I speak from experience, feeling about 50 pounds lighter, I
guarantee you. Because it's a glorious thing, that first confession. But does
that help, Brian? Yes, that helps a lot. Thank you very much. All right.